Gundam SeeD: The Whisper of History
by Spiritblade
Summary: The lives of men and women echo in the pages of history. This story is dedicated to those of Gundam SEED's. Written in a fairy-tale fashion.
1. Cresecendo : The Whisper that begins

**_Gundam SeeD: The Whisper of History _**

**_Written by Spiritblade_**

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam SeeD, its characters, or its franchises. As stated before, do not send those irritating lawyers or the Assassin Orders on my trail.

This is a short poetry type story that I fabricated during my vacation. It's a bit short – sorry – but once it came in, it refused to go out. It details the stories of each of the characters, and how their lives echo in the pages of history. Without further ado, let us begin.

**_Prelude _**

Come with me for a little while.

Sit with me under the light of the moon and the stars.

Open your heart and mind,

And listen to the story that is whispered upon the wind.

Behold the vista that you see,

And remember the age when Man was finally able to soar amidst the stars.

Though yet to reach the zenith of His power,

It was but it first tentative steps to claim a great destiny.

But, even so, like angry ghosts, Man's flaws would follow him from the cradle of the Blue Star,

Threatening to shatter that dream.

You know our bloody requiem.

You have listened to the stories told of our race.

You have seen it written in books, and seen it in pictures where the past is brought to the present.

You know of our sins that we brought from our exile from Eden.

Ignorance might have been bliss,

But in this era, or in any other, it is but an invitation for past mistakes to be done again.

The 4 Aspects of the Scarlet, Black, White and Emerald Riders,

Yet 8 in total, have thundered across Creation ever since

God forged His Grand Design.

An original, perfect dream, that could only be made perfect through imperfection.

And so, the One Above watches his most favoured child,

Stride through the ages, bearing his burden that he has carried since he was cast out.

From that fabled Age till the present,

Man has ever been doomed – nay, damned – to make the same mistakes.

Behold then, the seeds of a new conflict sowed by Man's own unending desires.

In their quest to attain the perfection equal to the Celestials,

They acquired the desire to master Creation itself, to nurse that perfection from womb to birth.

Thus, were the Enhanced Ones born from Science's cold womb.

Stronger, faster and smarter.

They were everything that the Naturals hoped to be.

What came easily to the Enhanced Ones was won only through great struggle for the Naturals.

With such ability, however, came pride.

And because of that pride, and even before their arrogance was made manifest, their Natural siblings from whom they were born, were jealous.

That cancerous seed grew then.

What was once sown in a shared desire for ascension,

Soon grew a blood-red rose watered in jealousy and hate, and fertilised by resentment.

It listened not to words of acceptance from its nurturer,

But to his desire to exact retribution.

'God made Man,' he said, 'in his image. And by His Commandment, Man is forbidden to soil His Creations. Thus, the Enhanced Ones are an abomination. They must be destroyed.'

And so, it was done.

On a day dedicated to lovers,

Became a day that would be one remembered in sorrow and shame.

Written was it that that fateful day would set afire a conflagration not of love, but of war.

The harsh cry of the Pale and Scarlet Riders echoed

In the hearts of Men, and shook the fabric of Creation in their march.

In that defining moment, unseen by many save a wise few,

Saw that no matter how far Man would go,

No matter how much he had achieved,

No matter how far he tries to run,

The Curse spat upon him by the Adversary and the Creator remained eternal.

A Curse that is many forms and many names, and with each, a panacea to wash it clean.

A Curse that left its mark in the psyche of all born into mortal life,

And whose embers need but a spark, to set it alight once more.

The Imperium of the Naturals against the Kingdoms of the Enhanced soon set against each other in conflict.

A bloody storm rises as ships of iron and titans of steel paint the starlit skies in blossoms of fire.

Calls for restraint were ignored.

Pleas for mercy were drowned out by the twin furies of Hate and Wrath.

Nations that watched aghast tried to stop the conflict,

For they knew that should it continue, they, too, shall be drawn into the fire.

It is during times like these,

When the song reaches a crescendo,

That heroes rise.

Not perfect, storybook heroes that Man has written and dreamt about for ages uncounted,

But flawed, imperfect heroes whose footfalls are akin to those of titans,

And whose actions made perfect an imperfect race.

God makes not the story, but sets the stage and bears witness.

Man is the one who writes his destiny, and sets his finale.

The One Above bears witness, as from a bloody Requiem,

Rises a song of defiant glory.

From the Imperium of the Naturals to the Hourglass Kingdoms of the Enhanced,

They come, each bearing upon his or her person a song that is theirs, and no other.

This Requiem in blood has its crescendo, and brings with it

Its wild-eyed fanatics,

Blood spattered madmen,

Revolutionaries,

Would-be conquerors,

Generals,

Soldiers

And the common people.

This is not the song of the dearly departed, my young charge, oh no.

This is the Symphony of Man at its finest, and at its worst.

Come, sit with me a while longer, my young charges, and I shall tell you of them.

I shall tell you of the flawed, ghost-haunted heroes of the Ship of Angels.

I shall tell you of the hate-driven fanatics who desire supremacy by re-enacting the Sin of Caine.

And I shall tell you of idealistic realists who know the price of their ideals, and who are willing to pay the ultimate price for their dreams.

Come.

The night is long.

We have, my young angels, until dawn.


	2. Chapter 1: The Brothers' Song

**_Gundam SeeD: The Whisper of History _**

**_Chapter 1: The song of the Brothers_**.

_**Written by Spiritblade**_

* * *

Two friends as close as brothers, 

Are bequeathed a harsh fate.

Before their path is made clear,

They will pay a high price before they

Reach the Eye of the Storm.

One is a warrior of the Star Kingdom of the Enhanced, his dark hair and emerald hair

That contrasts with his scarlet robe and wings.

The other is a scholar within a star city of the Grey Kingdom, his brown hair and grey eyes,

That contrasts with his white robe.

Theirs is a promise made a decade ago beneath peaceful, tree-sheltered summer skies,

When warrior and scholar were but children.

But, sometimes, we can never keep those cherished promises,

No matter how hard we try.

All that matters is that we did.

When the 2 brothers would face one another once more,

They have become young men.

Their reunion was not beneath the tree-sheltered summer skies of their youth,

But the vista of a city burning.

It was a moment of decision,

When the woman he protected,

Would elevate him to his destiny.

Seeking to protect him, she had laid the foundations of his destiny.

She saw the wings that marked him as one of the Enhanced,

And she asked him to don the robes of a Defender.

The Ivory Princess knew what she asked of the young man.

For the Star Eagle could not do what the young Defender had done,

Nor could the Ice Maiden argue with the possibility of having him protect the Ship of Angels.

Above the burning city, the Steel Angels of the Enhanced Ones

Would clash with the Defender and the Eagle,

And in their fierce struggle, the Defender would consign his home to oblivion,

And be resigned to the fact that his friend was now his enemy.

It was a nightmare shared between Scarlet Angel and Defender,

A nightmare made real.

The Scarlet Angel's brothers stalk the Defender and the Ship of Angels,

With a wrath borne of duty and fury.

It is a lesson in humility that the titan cannot bring down the cunning fox.

The Scarlet Angel sighs quietly in relief,

But he cannot help but look at his childhood friend in a new light.

For one who hated war and violence, he murders as though it were second nature.

He fights with a will and focus of one born to the battlefields of Man.

The Defender does not back down.

There are innocents behind him on the Ship of Angels.

His friends.

The helpless.

The last remnants of the Imperium's warriors.

We all come of age eventually.

Hardship, one's willingness to let the past go,

These are two options amongst many where young men and women become adults.

The Scarlet Angel reaches out to the Defender,

Asking that he cross over, that he spares them the agony of crossing swords.

He pleads and he begs, but his brother says no.

For what value is a promise when it is broken?

What is the terrible weight that must be borne by its bearer,

Who knows that to fail is to condemn the helpless to their doom?

Only the bearer can answer these questions,

And the Scarlet Angel shall have his answer from the Star Princess that the Defender

Delivers safely into his arms.

He finds that beneath his brother's death-bringing façade,

Is the same boy that he had known all his life.

With each stroke that consigns another soul to oblivion,

A scar is gouged onto the Defender's soul,

A tear is shed for the departed,

And a prayer is whispered amidst broken sobs for a flame that can never be rekindled.

Many, many souls have fallen before the Defender's fiery sword,

And many more would pave the way to a confrontation between the Defender and the Scarlet Angel.

The weight and the guilt grows,

And doubts begin to show.

The brothers' oath starts to fragment.

The Scarlet Angel watches many of his fellows die about him, even as the Defender knows that, one day, he will share their fate.

He has written his Judgement in the blood of others, and he knows Justice has a long reach.

But, even as he waits for his Judgement,

There are those who are willing to deny the Defender his fate, even if it means suffering it themselves.

But it is all for naught.

Before their horrified eyes,

They watch as the bloodless battle between the Scarlet Angel and the Defender

Becomes bloody.

An anguished scream that becomes a howling roar,

And their brotherhood dissolves into a hungry desire for retribution.

An image and a voice echoes in the Scarlet Angel's mind,

_'You shall smite your brother, and bring him low,_

_But your wrath shall cleanse him,_

_And redeem you. Hate him not, for he feels that his death by your hands is just.'_

Only after the battle is done, does the Scarlet Angel remember those words that made him cry,

And judged by the golden eyes of the Lioness who loves the Defender.

Her wracking sobs is matched by the sorrow of the crimson-haired Fallen Angel who sought to make the Defender her weapon of vengeance,

And the painful realisation to those abroad the Ship of Angels that one of their own had perished.

This is the Brothers' song,

Where the symphony is written in blood,

And where the song itself is sung as a dirge.

This is the Brothers' song,

That echoes a sin long ago done,

And cursed Mankind to a fate that will remain as long as He exists.

But it is not over yet.

Not yet, not until the Requiem is played to a finish.

Not until those who started this bloody Jyhad,

Realise that when enough lives are lost,

When enough blood has been spilt,

When wrath gives way to horror,

When false justice gives way to realisation,

The course of history can be changed, though the price is high.

One falls into the pit, but may rise the wiser.

The hope of the dead,

Is that the living do not make the same mistakes.


	3. Chapter 2 : Warrior's Anthem

_**Chapter 2: Warriors' Anthem**_

_**Written by Spiritblade **_

To all men and women alike, there are 2 sides to each and all,

Yet so many in between.

The cloth of one's profession denotes an unspoken code

Of conduct, but how it is taken,

Is up to the wearer.

What is obedience?

What is loyalty?

What is honour?

No one soldier holds one true answer.

From ages old, each had searched for that answer.

None come close, but all came ever closer.

For the Ivory Princess, she who guides the Ship of Angels,

It is to have those who follow you believe

In you and what you stand for.

A flag is an empty thing – it denotes nothing but a piece of land

God had created in the First Age.

A president is another man – he or she is nothing but another man,

Who can die just like any other.

But faith and belief – ah, here is the thing that lasts.

No one can extinguish ideal.

No one can extinguish faith.

Light that fire, and see it blaze.

It may dim, but it will never die.

But even the light can blind, and faith perverted,

And from there, we see the journey we must undertake.

To the Ice Princess, she who stands beside the Ivory Princess,

It is the law.

Great men and women have died to make that flag a reality.

Built upon the sweat of heroes and the toil of giants,

Can a nation be made great.

The word of one's superior is law,

And is spoken by people who have the best interests of others in mind.

But, in time, the Ice Princess learns,

That to place one's own life within the hands of one's superiors,

Is to blind yourself to the sins they are capable of committing.

You are the sword to murderers and fallen angels,

And, thus, thou art no less guilty than they are.

No reasons you give will save you from God's punishing gaze,

Nor will the Adversary accept your excuses that you have done it at another's behest.

'Thou have the arms, the legs, the mind and the heart to say no,' they shall say,

'If I stand in thy way, remove Me from thy sight, and find thy own destiny. I shall watch, and bear witness.'

Is a lesson too late to be learnt?

Is it too late to see that answer when one stands at Death's door?

The Star Eagle, he who defends the Ship of Angels alongside the Defender,

Is a haunted soldier.

Past and present meet in a furious clash.

To him, he sings the same song as any other soldier,

But he sees clearer, sees farther, and hopes for more beyond medals and honour.

Beneath a boyishly playful façade he hides,

Earning the affection of both the Ice Princess and the Ivory Maiden.

He sees, he advises,

He acts, he enforces.

No promise from him comes empty, and perhaps, we learn the weight of when it is given.

What is a soldier?

What makes that man or woman one?

What makes you willing the commit murder and bear the burden of the sin?

Is your nation worth your life?

Is your ideal worth your sacrifice?

If your religion worth anything at all?

Or is it those that you cherish that makes you willing to blacken yourself in God's eyes?

We have defiled every good and noble thing ever since our exile from Eden.

War seems our only redemption.

For in struggle and strife, was Creation brought into being.

For in struggle and strife, can we make wrong aright again.

We pay in blood and tears.

We are taught regret.

We waste the years of our youth.

We blacken our souls in infamy, that before God's Golden Throne, your blackened soul shrivels before His furious gaze.

But, in return, we hold aloft the laurel of victory.

And is that victory worth all that you have sacrificed?

Can you tell the departed that it was for this that they have died?

And can you put them to rest with a promise that the madness that took their lives will not take others?

That is the unspoken request of soldiers living and dead: That the living remember that which took their lives, and that they never permit it to happen again.


	4. Chapter 4 : Song of the Maidens

_**Chapter 3: The Maidens' hymn**_

_**Written by Spiritblade **_

4 points there are to the cross, And so 4 will form the very sigil in which the Defender is crucified. A holy number, A sacred number, One that encompasses the 4 elements to a central heart, And one that promises stability even as the number is lessened singly.

4 maidens there are, and to each, a dominion in the starlight.

The first is the fallen angel princess.

She who is crimson of hair, and azure of eye,

She who yearns to be the burning heart of the man that claims her.

Who yearns for love and acceptance ever as she, by her own hand,

Ruins that she desires above all else.

It is this sad, fallen maiden who shall manipulate the Defender,

And who is manipulated in turn.

Under Heaven's darkened light,

She who sought vengeance to use him as her tool,

Soon discovers that it is she,

Who is soon to become the fool.

Midnight under the desert skies, the stars and moon above,

What was once vengeance, finally becomes love.

'He will protect me,' the fallen angel whispers,

'The fate that befell my father shall not befall me. I know, because he is protecting me.'

But, what she whispers near the end is but a pathway that is made in her faith in him,

'Fear not, my Defender, for my heart will protect yours.'

Pave a pathway in the stars, shining bright as tears shed,

As crimson as blood that is bled.

'I will mark your life with my own, and that with your light, I will emerge from the dark.

'A moment in eternity, my love, is still eternity. But if the fates decree it so…

'I want it to be forever.'

Second amongst the 4 is the Paladin of the Unconquered Sun.

She who is of golden hair and tawny eyes.

She who stands amongst the endless desert, as unconquered as the desert itself,

And who is as a lioness in mortal flesh.

Who beneath her warrior's garb, sleeps a Princess who reigns over a nation that

Seeks a path few dare to follow.

It is she who will bring courage to the Defender,

Who is her yin to her yang.

Diametric opposites who attract one another, who find comfort in a touch

That knows every pain, and understands every tear.

She who fights for ideals,

Soon finds that ideals cannot protect nor resurrect those that fall.

That, in hearing one side of the story, is akin to hearing it not at all.

She will see war's most horrifying side, and understand its madness.

She will see and meet the Defender's brother, and bear witness to the clash the two brothers had.

The crimson scarlet the Horseman wears, is not the red of blood, nor the crimson of victory,

But it is the scarlet of a rising sun that burns like a funeral pyre.

When her nation falls, when she finds that the love she had hopes to make real fades,

When she sees that to stand for one's ideals may well mean laying everything on the altar,

Is the succession complete.

'For,' she will ask, 'where is the right and wrong in a war when all are wrong?

'We are blinded by our own hate, by our own ignorance, and by our refusal to forgive.

'When this war ends, can we hope to prevent another?'

But, even so, the Lioness hopes to see it happen.

Even as her warriors understand the weight of that dream, and the cost of making it so.

Third in the sacred four is the Star Princess.

She whose hair is the pink of a virgin dawn, and whose eyes are the cool warmth of the oceans.

She whose voice brings warmth and comfort, and whose

Heart can match the fiery sun, bringing warmth even as it burns.

Like fire in the coldest winter night, it is she that brings warmth, and hope,

To the Defender who is lost.

She tells him not to be shamed by his tears.

She whispers to him that it is all right to be weak.

She sings to him, echoing a paean of hope and courage.

To have strength of heart and spirit is a virtue of those who choose their fate,

And when the path is chosen, to see it through.

'Light my way, my Defender, and spread your wings.

'Bring hope to those who have lost it.

'Bring Freedom to those all who deserve it.

'Let your cry echo to the farthest end of the galaxy. Let all know that humanity still has her heroes.'

Much is sacrificed on the Star Princess's part.

But, to her, what is fame and fortune?

What is privilege?

What is wealth?

None of these matter to her. The Defender that flies out on his seraphic wings

To defend a race that has lost itself to in its own hate.

She is the one she prays for.

Because when Armageddon ends, the scars that he has on his broken soul,

Will need to be held by hands that know the story behind each one.

Last, but not least, is the Ice Princess.

She who is as fallen as the Fallen Angel princess herself.

Why is she here, you ask, where her paean is that of a warrior's anthem?

She is here because she has also made a choice in the passing.

'I chose duty over righteousness.'

Those words echo her every action.

Duty is a fine virtue, but is duty righteous?

Open your eyes and see.

Only you can define righteousness.

Duty at the behest of evil men can make it evil.

How many monsters has Holy Terra borne in her embrace that did evil in the name of duty?

But, a question that becomes a hope, can lead to redemption.

It began in the Star City, and will end in the Star Ocean.

'His eyes are bright as starlight,' the Ice Princess whispers softly in her passing,

'I have made my mistakes, and I regret making them.

'But, when I see those eyes again, I have faith in myself enough to know that I can be whole again.

'Yes, whole…and forgiven.'

Yes, only you can define righteousness.

Only you can define duty.

Never let one blind you to the other.

Cruel decisions are asked to be made, and if it comes to it, know that the consequences are yours to bear.


End file.
